Yes. The long version updated the story to the 90s and the editor missed a lot of anachronisms. The extra material was largely superfluous to the story, though I did enjoy the fate of “The Kid”.
Tunnel was awesome in the book. Even in the first movie it was better but to be replaced by a sewer? - just didn't work for me - sure for gross out but not at all scary. Overall, sure it isn't complete garbage, it isn't great either.
After watching episode 2, this series continues to be frustrating. What they do well (tone, casting, performances from most of the cast) they do really well. The interaction between Lloyd and Flagg was a bright spot, as was most of the Rita and Underwood storyline But there are so many choices that I just don't understand. The non-linear narrative continues to suck all of the tension out of the story. The tunnel scene had no impact at all, knowing that Larry makes it to Boulder safely. The whole point of that scene in the book is that the tunnel is his only way out of the city and he has to weather horrific conditions. Instead we got a slightly creepy journey that he really doesn't have to be taking (as Rita proves) and which we all know he'll make it out of.
I wouldn’tdisagree that the scene going through the tunnel was more effective (especially in the novel). Not sure why the change except maybe to create a stronger sense of claustrophobia.
It wasn’t necessary to update it per se especially given that in theGunslinger books it was established to have occurred in an alternate reality.
Just watched the first hour of the new version of The Stand, and it was a whole lot of "WTF" for me. I know the story backwards and forwards -- read the original around 1979, read the revised version in 1990 or 1991, and then listened to the audio book in the early 2000s -- so I knew what to expect. I really liked Mick Garris' 1994 ABC-TV movie, and assumed this new version done almost two decades later would be a much bigger-budget, less-censored version of the original classic Stephen King story. But I found it to be a mess. Pacing was all over the place, it seemed needless cluttered with flashbacks and flash-forwards and all kinds of stuff. I think a conventional, chronological story would have been fine, especially for a 10-hour streaming show. "M-O-O-N," that spells clunky end-of-the-world horror show.
I felt exactly the same way the first time I watched episode one. Then I watched it a second time with my wife so I could try to explain it out to her what was going on. Understanding the structure they're trying to present the story with, while still clunky at times, seemed to help it flow along better. We'll see where it goes but based on that first episode, my opinion went from godawful to not terrible. As far as uncensored, if you cut out the swearing, it would still be a major network series. Nothing groundbreakingly edgy.
My wife hasn't read the book or seen the original miniseries, and she's utterly lost. That's a terrible failure, asI'm sure she's not the only person who's new to the story and isn't getting hooked on it.
The thing about Stephen King is how acceptable he is to plot alterations for the sake of a film version. I don’t mean that in a good way. It really bothers me how “artists” are so easily bought off. It’s a plague that actually has always been with the human race. I believe Charles Dickens was pushed to write in a less dark and critical way. I know “All’s Quiet on the Western Front” was actually banned from most governments during WWII as was “Jonny Got His Gun”. Those i just mentioned were for political reasons. And of course “Huck Finn” was banned from most school libraries because of the language that for Twain was the entire point, all men are equal. But the desire of main stream powers players and politicians to manipulate writers to complay with their versions of society goes deep. No mater if the reason is political, subversive, financial, it’s always a factor in major controversial or popular works. The true artist/writers won’t budge. Unfortunately the ones who sell out do so easily. So what we get on film is often a watered down version of what the writer was trying to say. One theme I feel King ran through the stand was that we are the survivors. Remove the polish of civilization and those people are us. And as humans we are constantly in need of someone to show us the right way. To lead us. We are so easily led in the wrong way. When a writer lets the film industry alter their work, in a way in which the important message is watered down or even removed, they have sold out. It’s easy to see why one would do so, often to say I’ll have more power later on, but as Neil Young wrote “....once you go there, you can’t come back”. Or, “You can’t serve two masters at the same time”.
I can remember when many were (justifiably, I think) critical of the changes on the TV version of Under the Dome. King commented, "hey, I told the producers to use the character's names, use the name of the town, make sure there's an unexplainable alien dome covering the town, and the rest is up to them." And the changes there were radical, like turning into Invasion of the Body Snatchers at one point, which was totally not in the original novel. The novel was really just a big shaggy dog story, where for all the build-up, the ending/explanation took maybe 2 paragraphs and didn't cover much. To me, it was a retread of Lord of the Flies with a vague sci-fi element, and it didn't gell -- not the novel, certainly not the TV show. The Stand is a much more complex story, and to me it's about how some people under pressure (particularly in a catastrophic situation) will either rise to the challenge to work hard, be unselfish, and become heroes... while others will get wrapped up in selfish pursuits and join villainous leaders who don't want the best for us. I think the muddled structure was completely unnecessary, and to me The Stand is already complicated enough, you don't want to add another layer of complexity by forcing the audience to see "five months later" or "2 weeks previously" situations. Part of the whole surprise is the element of finding out who you can trust, who becomes treacherous, who lives, and who dies. They gave a lot away in that first episode, and that's not a story I want to see. King is quick to say, "fans come up to me and say, 'oh, god, they changed your book so much for this film!' Well, that book is sitting right over there on my shelf <pointing to a long pile of hardbacks>, and believe me, not even a word was changed in the book. You want to enjoy the exact story I intended to write, then read the book. If you want a completely different take on similar ideas, watch the movie." Though he also admits there are movies (like Children of the Corn) where he actually tried to take his name off them because he felt they strayed far away from the plot and characters he intended. I'm also with King that his original ending of The Shining was better than what Kubrick did... and yet I like a lot of the film stylistically. Really, the only two things I hate about The Shining are 1) Jack Nicholson's character is completely crazy from day one, rather than slowly unravelling over time (as he does in the book); and 2) the hotel doesn't blow up at the end and instead, Jack Torrance freezes to death in the maze.
Out of curiosity, what did you think of the original mini-series? I ask this because I liked it but I never read the book, so I can not compare objectively. Back then, there were very few stories that were told in an extended visual format. There were movies and mostly nothing else. I thought this led to good story telling and character development. As we see, King's movies have always strayed from his novels.
I thought it was OK, but I'm think about it from the distance of 25 years. The problem with stuff from 1994-1995 is it looks really cheap and "limited" compared to what they can do today. Back then, if you had a crowd of 30-40 people, that was considered a big deal. Now, with digital effects, they can multiply the crowds to thousands in just a few days, for a fraction of the cost of actually hiring that many extras. Same thing with big sets. The Stand is a story that has vast empty cities where everybody is dead, so trying to visualize that would be enormously costly: getting rid of all the cars on the street, getting permits, quieting everybody down, and then shooting a scene that showed maybe 10-12-14 empty city blocks behind the lead characters. So basically, I think they did the best they could back in 1994, but basically on what I would guess was a total budget of maybe $6 million-$7 million dollars. Nowadays, a show like this would be ten times that for a 10-hour miniseries. And there are shows like Westworld or Game of Thrones that cost $15 million per hour (!!!). The new Hobbit/Lord of the Rings prequel from Amazon is said to cost even more than that: Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’: Everything You Need to Know | IndieWire These massive, epic shows are really complicated, expensive, and time-consuming to produce.
King edited the "Director's Cut" version of The Stand himself, didn't he? (I haven't read it in years, can't remember) Don't even get me started, man That's kinda the reason I'm leery of checking out this new Stand series- I remember the original miniseries from the 90's being decent, and thinking that was good enough. That Under The Dome series was a travesty (I did take the time to reread the novel for my sins a few months back...not as bad as it was the first time, still a bit of a slog at times...), I'd hate to see that happen with The Stand. Mind ya, given how 2020 went The Stand is kind of the last thing I want to watch at the moment...I remember thinking when the news started coming out about Covid a year ago, "Uh oh...here comes Captain Trips!"
I don't disagree with your point, but the series is produced and co-written by his son Owen. Maybe he gave Owen some leeway...
It looks like this should be the end of the post-It Stephen King remake boomlet... which is probably a good thing. Even though the first part of It was pretty okay, everything else in the boomlet has been mediocre (Pet Sematary, the Mr. Mercedes series) to really bad (It, Part 2) to a flaming disaster (Dark Tower.) It’s funny to look back to the first King adaptations and remember how much the source material appealed to a really impressive cross section of very talented directors - Brian De Palma, Tobe Hooper, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Rob Reiner, Frank Darabont - wherever you stand on the King spectrum between hack and artist (I’m about three quarters of the way to artist, right where craft begins to shade into art) you have to agree that something King created was the catalyst for some terrific video. (And further to the current discussion, a common thread in all the aforementioned directors work was that they shot the material the way King wrote it, with a linear plot line that had a distinct beginning, middle, and end.)
He basically cut back in all the sections that his 1980 editor had cut out. I think some of the cuts worked, but some of the new material was good, so I'm 50/50. It is a long, long, long book. I got news for you: It Chapter 2 cost $79 million and made a whopping $474 million, so it was hardly bad at all. On the minus side, it only got a 62% on Rotten Tomatoes, so reviews were mixed. I liked both It Chapter 1 and It Chapter 2 and thought they did a pretty good job, with the one exception that I would have set it in the past. I don't think having contemporary kids running around on old bicycles really works -- that's more a late-1950s/early 1960s thing (as it was in the original novel). I agree with you on Mr. Mercedes, which was haaaaaaarible. Don't forget Under the Dumb.
There was undoubtedly a huge carryover from the first It, but that’s not repeatable... and honestly, I thought the second It was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was endless, pointless, and utterly devoid of the emotional triggers that made the first one enjoyable. Most of the time I couldn’t remember which of the adult males was which. And, OK, rambling on, but it really pissed me off, for a movie that went on forever, there was so much waste - they (barely) introduced Audra, but fluffed her plot line completely, making the scenes with the old bike meaningless. The asylum guy plot could have been cut out completely and no one would have noticed, but instead we spent two hours searching for the Horcruxes (er, artifacts) that proved to be utterly useless, since all it finally took to defeat the horrible monster was SPOILER standing around calling it names. It’s like if Gollum had run away with the ring and Frodo and Sam had stood on Mt. Doom yelling “You’re big and ugly, Sauron” and he’d crumbled in shame. So with no apparent demand for remakes of the “classic” Kings, with Dark Tower dead once and for all, it’s hard to see where, barring an odd short story adaptation here or there, we’re going to see more King in the near future. It’s too bad, because Bag of Bones, say, or especially Duma Key, in the right hands, would make terrific movies, but the hot young directors who used to venerate King are now more likely to try to make the next incomprehensible sci-fi blockbuster.
Like I say, haven't read The Stand in years but the long revised version is the one for me. I haven't seen the new version of IT. The 90's miniseries version is good enough for me ( Tim Curry as Pennywise)
You should give it a shot -- both recent IT films are pretty easy to find these days, and I think they were surprisingly well done. I read the novel a couple of times, and I think the recent films were closer than most people know. Well, I count more than 50 Stephen King projects currently in development on IMDB -- but that includes TV mini-series, streaming series, theatrical films, streaming films, shorts, and remakes. Apparently, somebody wants to see this stuff. The one I'm most looking forward to is The Institute, which basically uses elements from Carrie (troubled telekinetic teenage girl), Firestarter (young girl with ability to cause things or people to burst into flames), Dr. Sleep (teenage girl who has the ability to read minds across vast distances), The Shining (young boy who has the ability to read minds and predict the future), and Dead Zone (man with ability to touch someone and instantly know their future). I'd call it "the evil government's version of Hogwarts, where they're trying to turn children into weapons." If nothing else, The Institute is the most cinematic story King has written in 20 years, next to 11/22/63. Done well, I think it could be a big hit.
Bag of Bones has been done. Duma Key in the right hands would be amazing. That book was such a pleasant surprise for me.
Thanks... I can’t believe I missed Bag of Bones... or that it was only a two parter that aired on A &E. I thought the book was very good, but it was long and fairly complicated, so it’s hard to imagine a two part miniseries doing it justice. ( It’s also one of the very, very few King novels that features genuine sexual tension between two main characters. For all the millions of words he’s written, and all the explicit violence, he basically ignores sex, or brushes over it in very broad strokes. And even when it makes an appearance, in 11/22/63 for instance, there’s very little heat to his writing.) Has anyone seen the Bag of Bones miniseries?
How dare you say Stephen King sold out? You don't know him or his reasons for doing what he does. He doesn't have to explain anything to anyone.
